Wonders of Japan Tour: 7-Day Exploration for Families

Zicasso's travel specialist and her team planned an absolutely outstanding 16-day trip for me and my family. We visited Tokyo, Ghibli Park (near Nagoya), Kanazawa, Kyoto (with day trips to Nara and Osaka), and then wrapped things up with two nights at a beautiful and luxurious ryokan in Hakone.

Communication leading up to the trip was clear and efficient, and whenever we had a question during the trip, we were able to get quick answers from our travel company's rep in Japan.

I would absolutely book another trip with this company.

Zicasso's travel agent and his team put together an amazing two-week trip throughout Japan for our family of five. Every detail was thought of. The activities were so well-planned and unique with a private experience. We never felt like the places were gimmicky or touristy. Getting us tickets to the sought-after sumo tournament in Tokyo was a true highlight! Our agent made it happen. An Osaka futbol game was a memorable afternoon. Our agent made it so easy with all of the various transportation details to smoothly get around Japan. We are grateful for all the meticulous planning to make this a truly memorable trip for our family!

Our trip was wonderful and we had an excellent planner. He always responded within 24 hours and had an answer for whatever I was asking. Here is some additional feedback:

The documents provided (itinerary, cultural information, tour guide) were all very easy to read and informative. The instructions for using the trains and other modes of transportation turned out to be crucial for us.

We had a great guide in Tokyo. She spoke English well, provided interesting information at the sites we visited, and catered the day to our needs. She was also very good with children.

We ended up not going to Hakone, which was part of the itinerary, and our agent was able to help us get refunds for those tickets, which I understand was an unconventional request. It was nice to know the tickets and money didn't go to waste.

The Miyajima hotel and stay was so beautiful, and our experience there was very unique. I'm so glad our agent planned that as part of our trip.

The hotel in Tokyo was almost perfect; the staff were fantastic, the rooms were comfortable, and the included breakfast was delicious. The only drawbacks were that the pool was closed for renovations, which was disappointing, and their fitness center was very small and would often get extremely crowded in the mornings.

We had a good guide in Kyoto, but probably could've done a better job to account for the heat. We were outside for long stretches; I'm sure he just wanted to get us to more sites, but by the end of the day we were miserable from the sun and humidity. We had children and seniors in our family, and sometimes we were standing in the heat as he explained something which wasn't ideal. His English was okay, but some of our party felt he had difficulty answering some of our questions.

On our trip back from Kyoto to Tokyo, it's not clear why the agency booked us on the Shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo, then on a Narita Express from Tokyo to Shinjuku, when we could've taken the train to Shinagawa and saved some time.

Our agent clearly explained that the agency could not make restaurant reservations for our party, but that would've been very helpful since we were a group of 12 and it was often difficult to make that work. We ended up doing it ourselves or through the hotels.

The machiya houses were super-cool, but eight people in one of them was a lot. Also, I understand they're Japanese style, but there wasn't much furniture in there, so we ended up having to sit on beds or on the floor.

The IC cards didn't seem to be separated by child and adult (hopefully I'm not wrong there). This created an issue when we scanned our cards along with the child Shinkansen tickets. We got stopped and had to get the train attendant to help.

The sumo lunch was super-fun. The food (tonkatsu) was delicious, the service was great, and the wrestlers were very engaging, and a few of our party even got to wrestle a bit!

The photo shoot was enjoyable for the kids and the staff there were very patient, attentive, and helpful. Our pictures look great and they were ready within minutes!

I didn't like the application Zicasso uses for communicating with our travel agent. It was a little easier when it was just emails back and forth, but it was not ideal to have to log into a separate application (this one) to communicate. It's hard to do on a mobile phone and takes an extra few steps. It'd be better to communicate through existing platforms like email, WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook, Google Workspace, or Microsoft Teams.

Overall, it was a great trip, with excellent hotels and guides, and great communication. I wish our time were better allocated though. For instance, one day in Tokyo and four days in Kyoto was not balanced. We would have preferred three days in Tokyo and two days in Kyoto. We visited too many shrines and temples, and would've liked more fun activities. But overall, it was good.

From our arrival to our departure, everything was fantastic! When we travel within the States, we do our own research and planning. However, we knew nothing about Japan (our daughter pushed for this trip). We decided to go “old school”, with a travel agent. We found ours through Zicasso.

The travel agents were great to work with and very responsive to emails. The itinerary was great and having guides for most of our excursions made everything so much more enriching. Especially when it came time for lunch. They know the best places!

We were a little worried about being there over the holidays, but we had no issues, with the exception of the crowds around Hakone for the Ekiden relay race.

Our guide created a slightly modified plan for our day trip in Hakone National Park to avoid road closures so we didn’t miss a thing. It was also a little stressful making sure we could make it back to Tokyo for our return flight with road closures and taxi/bus availability, but everything worked out perfectly with Japan’s wonderful train system.

We would definitely work with Zicasso's travel partner again.

We recently returned from our trip to Japan, which was booked with the tour operator through your platform. We are writing to share that the entire itinerary was exceptionally well designed and executed.

Zicasso’s travel specialist paid meticulous attention to our requirements, including our dietary preferences and specific trip objectives. We stayed four nights at our hotel in Tokyo, where the staff, amenities, and services were excellent. We also spent three nights at our hotel in Kyoto, which provided one of the best boutique hotel experiences we have ever had. The artistic design, location, and level of service were truly outstanding.